We tag teamed again today.  Scott stayed with sleeping Cody and I took Brooke on a several hour tour of a Forest History Center in Grand Rapids, MN.  Cody was not in same shape I left him when I returned, but we’ll get to that later…

Several fabulous individuals reenacted a logging camp in the 1890’s.  We visited a shopkeeper, the cook, the sleeping quarters, blacksmith, and Brooke’s favorite the horse barns.   Brooke wanted to know why the horses didn’t say “neigh” while we were there.

Outside of the Filer’s Shack, where we learned how the saws were maintained, we had an opportunity to try  our hand at being a “sawyer”.  I’m wondering if Mark Twain got the idea for Tom Sawyer from the job title sawyer.  We don’t usually have a lot of time to get to the Internet even though we have many McD’s stops.  We usually just sit in the parking lot for five minutes upload and go.  The kids have a limited desire to sit in the car seats, understandably.  I miss Facebook (Scott would say Good!) and being able to Google any questions we come up with.

Back to this mornings visit.  Brooke also loved the kitchen.  We learned that the cook would put prunes in the loggers’ cakes to make sure they wouldn’t get scurvy.  She also learned that the men ate a lot of beans to keep things moving. Beans were also called, “linen lifters”.  The horses ate a lot of straw and oats to keep their systems moving smoothly.  They used to forest White Pine up in these parts.  However, it took only about thirty years and they cleaned the area out.

There was a lot more information that we gathered from the reenactment and the visitor’s center, but I won’t bore you with it all.  However, if you are ever in the area this center is definitely worth the time.

This is my poor baby boy that I returned to after touring the center with Brooke.  Apparently while they were waiting for us they went and toured the Visitor’s Center.  Scott says he fell on a metal pot by a fireplace.  I asked if he was near him.  “Not at the time,”  Scott said.  I am not going to pass too much judgment since Brooke fell down the stairs at Meme’s right in front of me a few weeks ago.  However, I will take a moment to mention again that Scott and I have different ideas of “supervision”.  His eye bled for an hour and a half.  I said he needed stitches, Scott said he’s fine…  Scott also said, “Cody took it like a man and only cried for a minute.”

In other news… another day, another Wal-Mart, and another McDonalds.  We did a quick upload at McDonalds and at Wal-Mart we traded in our battery.  It turns out that continually draining a battery kills it permanently.  I learned something new again.  Instead of buying an additional battery we bought a “Booster Box”.  We will see how that goes.